Mirrors
by Arcadia Eclipse
Summary: A darker look at the relationship between Axel and Roxas from Axel's perspective. They're best friends and confidants but to Axel it's the bruises Roxas inflicts that make him feel like he has a "heart."


_Warnings_: Yaoi (Roxas/Axel and Xaldin/Axel), Het (Axel/Larxene), violence, language, sexual situations. This fanfic is intended for adult readers only.

Author's Note: I play with timelines a bit during this story and make reference to actual events from the game but portrayed a bit differently.

**~ * ~ Mirrors ~ * ~**

(Part 1 of 2)

_**By Arcadia Eclipse**_

The ice cream was salty yet sweet on the tip of my tongue, a welcome refreshment in the uncommonly dry heat of mid-summer. Showers of red and gold sparks rained down from the sky in waves of five of six at a time but my eyes were only half-focused on the explosion of fireworks far above where we sat perched out of sight on the wooden roof. Beside me Roxas seemed fully engrossed in the light display, not even noticing that his ice cream had begun to melt down his gloved fist and pool in a sticky puddle on his coat below.

I just grinned, savoring the last of my own frozen treat then moving to swap the melting bar clasped in Roxas's fist for the empty stick in mine. He barely noticed the exchange and as the music and revelry drifted around us courtesy of the villagers enjoying their summer festival below I wondered if Roxas's mind was somewhere much farther away than the rooftop of the Imperial Palace where we currently sat together watching the shower of colored lights.

"Hey, Roxas. Whatcha thinking?"

"Nn. Yeah…probably.."

My lips quirked into a smile but I didn't press the question, just licking my stolen ice cream and turning my attention back to where the sky was burning above us. Red then green tendrils, blue swirls of light interspersed with violet canopies, but my favorite were the occasional bullet sprays of gold- tiny but powerfully loud like a cannon shot in the darkness. These fireworks reminded me of my slender lover.

"They're just like you."

"Huh? What is?"

"The little gold ones." I grinned. "Tiny and powerful but done in two seconds."

This time Roxas tore his eyes away from the light show to glare at me but my grin must have given him incentive to ignore the comment since the blonde looked again to where the heavens above were now exploding in light. Dozens of fireworks burst overhead all at once in a mist of color and flame before silence descended heavily once more through the evening air.

Drifting up from the streets below a growing climax of cheers alerted us that the fireworks had finally run their course, although a thick fog of smoke and gunpowder remained cast in a cursory shroud over the Imperial City hiding us for now from the prying eyes of any townsfolk below. We stood, two shadows moving together within the alcoves to discard the remnants of our sticky treats and slip away in the darkness.

"It's late. We should get back."  
"Liar, it's like nine o'clock. Learn to live a little, Roxas."

My companion sighed but relented easily if for no other reason than I knew that neither of us was really dying to get back and play fifty questions with Xemnas over where we had been all day instead of out searching for powerful Somebodies to stalk and claim their hearts for his purposes.

"Fine. Where did you want to go?"

"We could hit up Traverse Town. There's a tavern in the Hotel. Let's go drink our woes away, remember the good times."

Roxas quirked an eyebrow at me and though his expression remained otherwise unreadable I got the distinct feeling that he wanted to shove me off the roof.

"Nobodies don't have woes, we have no memories to reminisce what was 'good' and you know I don't drink anyway."

"Neither do I."

"….You're a really odd Nobody."

"And you're friends with me." I grinned and nudged him teasingly with my shoulder. "What does that say about you?"

He had never won an argument with me yet and though I could see Roxas sighing from the corner of my eye I felt my lover's resistance fade and it gave me all the more reason to slip up behind him. Wrapping my arms around his lithe frame and linking our fingers together I snorted into the top of his head softly to feel the drying sugar on his gloves sticking to mine.

"Your hands are sticky."  
"You're one to talk, Axel."

"Yeah, I know. Mine too." I raised our joined hands to my mouth and slid both our sticky fingers past my lips, sucking on each slender digit idly in turn while summoning a portal of darkness to send us tumbling through a world of nothing until we emerged a few moments later in the backstreets of Traverse Town. Though he had permitted my flirting for all of ten precious seconds Roxas pulled away once our feet were upon solid ground again and opted to walk ahead of me down the dimly-lit path as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

The rejection of my advances didn't faze me nearly as much as Roxas's apparent boredom towards me did. More and more lately I got the distinct impression that my lover merely put up with my eccentricities instead of genuinely seeking out my company. I figured it would have bothered me more if I held the capacity to feel anger or annoyance but instead I simply refused to let his boredom become my own and instantly my chakrams were summoned to my hands, the heavy metal a reassuring weight in my palms as I stalked after him silently in the alley.

Darkness on its own could never conceal my intentions from him and though my attack was silent and swift Roxas whipped around and stilled my chakram with his keyblade before it could connect with his back and cleave flesh from bone. Metal struck metal and in that instant our eyes met and I could see what Roxas could not. He wasn't like the rest of us; there was something deeper- a flicker of spite, confusion and even a glimmer of arousal from the feel of cold, forged steel clenched in his fist combined with the lingering odor of sulfur that forever clung to my gloves and the sleeve of my coat from battles gone by.

Years of observing Somebodies had taught me to recognize a bit of the emotion that eyes betrayed, and as his arousal subsided I could see a touch of weariness when Roxas drew his blade back to regard me silently questioning my intent. My grin emerged almost naturally and for now his boredom with this game was completely ignored on my part as my hand withdrew and fire sprang to life within my palms setting the cool metal of my weapons aflame.

"Axel…" He sighed. "I don't want to hurt you."

My lips quirked into a smirk while idly twirling one flaming chakram.  
"You're a bad liar, Roxas."

He grinned. We both knew it was a moot point to argue anyway when adrenaline coursed through our veins fueled by the promise of blood, bruises and sex. It was a wonder that none of the hotel guests spotted us or at least none of them were sober enough to coherently take note of two figures cloaked in darkness and now poised on the brink of an epic battle.

My next attack was purposely slow giving him time to react. Flames billowed from my weapons to blaze lines between us as Roxas ran from the waves of fire, expertly jumping to grip the balcony rail above and flip away from the wood just as it became engulfed in flames and land effortlessly in a nearby pool of water sunken into the ground of the alleyway. Whether it was the slender curves of his body accented now as he crouched in the water defensively or the way that his eyes burned into mine betraying a transient emotion somewhere between hate and glee, something in Roxas's artful escape triggered my arousal and the uncontrollable desire to hurt him grew deeper within me with each passing second.

I grinned and crouched beside the edge of the pool, flames gathering to my side and lapping at the edge of the water hungrily before disappearing.

"Cheater."  
"That wasn't cheating."

He whirled and a flash of metal blinded me a moment before something slammed into my chest knocking me back nearly a dozen feet into a stack of barrels and wooden crates behind the hotel tavern. It hurt to move and even breathing became a pained labor as I blinked at Roxas and took note of his Oblivion keyblade lying in the smoldering debris beside my body. That little fucker…

A low snarl rumbled in my throat and I grabbed the blade to chuck it back in his direction but just before connecting with his flesh it suddenly vanished in mid-air and reappeared docilely in his fist. I cursed.

"Alright, THAT was cheating," Roxas admitted with a smirk as he approached my prone body and crouched to grab a fistful of my hair, roughly yanking me to my feet before spinning my body about and shoving me face-first into the nearest horizontal surface- a wooden crate.

Roxas's small stature and natural tendency towards solitude concealed a surprising amount of strength in his lithe frame. His face betrayed nothing as I was summarily pinned to the rough wooden slats, the shorter Nobody using both of his hands to brace his keyblade when forcing the unforgiving metal into the nape of my neck to purposely bruise my flesh and send sparks up and down the length of my spine. Pain trickled white hot along my nerves and though my knees weakened and both eyes grew blurry I couldn't contain the grin tugging at the corner of my lips even as my cheek rubbed raw on the splintered wood and began to bleed. Only Roxas could make me feel this way. Like I had a heart…

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything. You hearing voices, Roxas?"

He growled in response, too aroused to justify his order and opted instead for a mumbled curse laced with just enough lust to be completely incoherent from where I remained obediently bent over the crate with my back to him.

The familiar hiss of a zipper sliding down coupled with the soft whisper of leather parting was somehow still audible over the laughter and boisterous shouts echoing from within the hotel tavern beside us. Even if Roxas worried over the prospect of being seen by a drunken patron or bartender sent to fetch another barrel of mead from behind the tavern, my lover's actions were bold and unashamed when pushing the waistband of my pants low and rubbing the head of his erection against my entrance to spread a drop of precum and make entry less painful for himself. My comfort was never factored into the equation of our sex but routine and past experience spoke louder than my grunt of pain when Roxas pressed more insistently upon the keyblade barring into my neck, forcing my head harder into the crate as he pushed inside my body with a low, pleasured hiss.

Whether his intention was to arouse me or not, there was always something so incredibly sensual about everything that the blonde Nobody did while seeking his own pleasures from my flesh. The first thrust was slow and deliberate, sliding fluidly without pause into the innermost recesses of my body and Roxas offered a gritted groan into my shoulder to signal that he had finally bottomed out deep inside. Even with his hips stilled and the front of my lover's thighs pressed flush to the backs of my own I could feel his cock warm and twitching inside me, throbbing faintly as if linked to the ancient rhythm of a heart born from primal need.

I clenched firmly around his length after the initial intrusion and though Roxas grunted in response his hips rocked just slightly against my backside, purposely denying me the satisfaction of a real thrust. It was a game that we played- inch by inch testing what the other would do and how quickly we could drive each other to the edge of sexual bliss before one of us caved and asked for more. Words weren't needed and as I relented my hips moved of their own volition to tip backwards in counter-rhythm to Roxas's shallow, rocking thrusts inside me. For my lover's purposes the unconscious motion was equivalent to verbalizing my submission and offering my body in full.

The smaller Nobody sped his pace, withdrawing his cock nearly to the tip on each outwards pull before slamming his hips forward in a jolting motion that effectively launched my own erection into the side of the wooden crate repeatedly. Each successive thrust was faster and more desperately yearning than the one before it. Minutes passed and as our sex devolved into something more breathless and feral my thighs began to tremble slightly from strain and the coppery scent of spilled blood flooded our senses courtesy of my cheek rubbed raw and now staining the wood below a crimson red.

Roxas groaned and bit into my shoulder lightly.

"Axel…can I?"

"Nn..yeah. S'okay."

Most of our companions were sticklers for pulling out before that final moment of liquid rapture but to me sex by definition should be dirty and leave messes in its wake. Consequently, Demyx and Zexion both refused me completely these days and even Marluxia insisted on being top if we ever fucked around.

We were a whole Organization of hypocrites, every one of them refusing to be fucked and filled and yet experience taught me that each one of them harbored the twisted desire to fuck, fill and consequently claim dominance over another of our group. To fuck, to fill was to own and as Roxas draped himself fully upon my back and shivered I felt my lover's slender hips twitch then still against the backs of my thighs. My spine arched in calculated response and I clenched slightly around his quivering cock, instinctually wringing the hot, sticky fluid from his body deep into my own.

"Feelin' better, Roxas?"

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

Roxas didn't waste his breath on another pointless argument over what he did or couldn't or even wished he would feel. His breath was warm and moist on the nape of my neck, shaky and slightly less in control than my dominant lover generally allowed the rest of the world to see and for a fleeting moment Roxas appeared vulnerable and unsure of himself, blonde lashes fluttering as his blue eyes slowly opened and my lover languidly withdrew from my body with a sigh. Our coupling never held much in the way of lingering intimacy but Roxas seemed unusually preoccupied as his keyblade vanished releasing me from my prone position. I was able to regard him fully as we both tucked away our intimate flesh and adjusted our coats to mask any trace of our evening endeavors.  
"You know," Roxas spoke softly while wiping the smeared blood from my face though he seemed to purposely avoid looking into my eyes, "I kinda think…I might miss this."

"What're you- …Damn it, Roxas!"

The smaller Nobody had vanished into a portal of Darkness before I could question his cryptic words but I followed after him seconds before the portal closed, still zipping my coat to disguise my lingering erection as we emerged in the World That Never Was.

"Gee, thanks for sticking around, Roxas. Appreciate it."

"You can't actually feel bitter, you know."

"How the fuck do you know what I can and can't feel?"

"Or anger."

It was a pain sometimes that he knew me so well. My feigned resentment vanished in an instant and I moved to walk beside him down the abandoned streets, an idle smirk on my lips as I regarded him from the corner of my eye.  
"Existence is boring without emotion, real or otherwise. Might as well fake it."

He snorted softly.

"You always fake everything with me."

"You never care if I cum or not anyway," I pointed out but my honesty didn't always sit well with him. This much I knew.

"Maybe I do care."

"So try harder. It's called a 'hand'."

"My hands were busy, Axel."  
"Not my fault." I grinned and this time sidled up beside him and snaked an arm around his narrow waist, nuzzling his neck while my voice lowered to a silky purr. "You could always let me top…"

I didn't expect him to agree so his silence didn't deter me, but in that moment looking at him I remembered his offhand comment moments before in the backstreets of Traverse Town. "What did you mean you'd 'miss this'?"

"I've just had a lot more questions than answers lately." Roxas purposely sped his pace to slip away from my grip and walk ahead down the street. I paused in turn but continued to smirk after him curiously now.

"Like?"

"Like…if I'm here…isn't there a Somebody somewhere missing half of himself? Am I missing part of myself too? What is that part like? Would it…" he paused now and stared at the ground. "Would it make me feel less empty?"

"Probably," I admitted with a shrug, feigning disinterest while stretching and opting to lean casually against a nearby building half hidden in shadow.

"I think so too. That's why… That's why I have to leave here. I need to find that part of myself, Axel. I feel it stronger every day. He's out there somewhere and he's not whole anymore. Like me."

"You can't leave the Organization."

"No one would miss me."

"That's not true!" My shout surprised both of us, echoing loudly through the alleyway much longer than intended and this time he tipped his head and regarded me over his shoulder, blue eyes delving into mine questioning my outburst but obviously not believing a word I said. After all, Nobodies couldn't feel, right? I turned my head away to avoid looking at him any longer than was absolutely necessary. Didn't he understand? Roxas did make me feel somehow. "I would.."

There was no reply and when I looked up again to regard him my lover was nowhere to be seen. Only darkness danced in my vision, dust swirling slightly at my feet as a soft breeze stirred in the alleyway and for a moment I swore I could hear his voice filtering through the wind:

'_You're a bad liar, Axel.'_

_~ * ~ End Part One ~ * ~_


End file.
